Above is a snapshot of my Second Life avatar in Moscow. I chose to be a female student (pretty original) and was fascinated by the amount of choices there were. It amazes me how the whole Second Life world was created by its residents. The amount of detail that is involved in each destination is so complex that it is very impressive for people to create such a sight on their own time. At first I started off at a beach and enjoyed the peaceful scenery. I then decided to go exploring and ended up in Moscow. The city appeared well developed and there were a number of people visiting there as well, or maybe they were residents?
After speaking to an ELA teacher about incorporating Second Life into her lessons, she was extremely hesitant. She was concerned that because her students come from sheltered homes and their exposure to media is limited that to use Second Life would be too dramatic of a technological shock for them. We then discussed ways to ease the transition for her students in a way that would make them feel comfortable and maximize the learning benefits. We brainstormed and decided to refer to Second Life as a game. All children are able to relate to games and each person gets to chose to be a different character in this game. The teacher can use Second Life to have students act out important scenes in the books that they are reading in exotic locations. This technology enables students to embody characters in a way that is much more real than to plainly dress up. In addition students can either use text to perform or voice which enables all students to feel comfortable with their performances. The teacher made sure to mention that students would have to be closely monitored to prevent them from being distracted by the wide array of destinations on the Second Life website. (The teacher I discussed this with was Mrs. Leah Muller from Jerusalem)
I also faced a similar problem when I spoke to the special ed. teacher I'm observing about incorporating SL in her ELA instruction. As I mentioned on my blog all of her students have special needs and so she felt that such a tool would exceed their capabilities. However, she was willing to work with me and brainstorm hypothetical scenarios and one of them was the possibility of having students practice role playing while studying Shakespeare plays. I find that the use SL for such activities is great because it can help learners contextualize their study of a play in a more experiential fashion.
ReplyDeleteTrue. There are many distractions in the SL environment. Teachers need to take that into account when thinking to integrate SL in the learning process. Also, teachers need to think about the grade level or age appropriateness when adopting SL.
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